Woman suing over O'Hare search

January 17, 2002|By Amy E. Nevala, Tribune staff reporter.

An Ohio woman of Pakistani descent who was asked to lift her sweater and unzip her pants during a security check at O'Hare International Airport filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Wednesday, seeking damages from an airport security company and the Illinois National Guard.

The racial profiling case is the first brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in Chicago on behalf of a Muslim American since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, ACLU lawyers said.

Samar Kaukab , 22, was returning home to Columbus, Ohio, on Nov. 7 after a conference in Chicago when security employees and a National Guardsman conducted a 30-minute search that she called "embarrassing, intrusive and unnecessary."

She said she felt confused about being stopped after passing through the metal detector without setting it off, but she complied as a security guard ran a hand wand over her sweater, pants and ankle-high boots, again finding nothing.

As she always does in public, Kaukab wore a hijab scarf to cover her head and neck. Refusing to remove the hijab in front of male security guards, she was taken to a small room where two female security screeners opened her clothing, felt through her hair and over her undergarments.

Kaukab, who is employed by Volunteers in Service to America to work with low-income students, said during a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday that she can only reason the search stemmed from her dress, ethnicity and religion.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, as well as an injunction preventing future unreasonable searches, against Maj. Gen. David Harris, adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, other National Guard members and employees of Argenbright Security, a private firm that handles security for all but one of the airlines at O'Hare.

Atlanta-based Argenbright was also the security firm involved in Chicago this fall when a man slipped by a screening area at O'Hare with knives and a stun gun.

Argenbright spokeswoman Christine DiBartolo said the firm is looking into the Kaukab case, but because it had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit, it could not comment on the conduct of employees involved.

DiBartolo said Argenbright employs 6,000 security screeners for 17 major airports. Strip searches, which Argenbright calls personal searches, for narcotics and concealed weapons are conducted with passengers "almost every day," she said.

Searches have increased in frequency since Sept. 11 due to stricter FAA guidelines, she said.

DiBartolo said that ethics is among the topics Argenbright security screeners focus on during classroom and on-the-job training, but she was unsure if cultural sensitivity was a part of that training.

Lt. Col. Larry Andrews, spokesman for the Illinois National Guard in Springfield, declined comment after saying that the guard has not seen the suit and has not been served papers.

Lawyers for Kaukab said their primary goal is to prevent this from happening to other Muslim women.

"Muslims understand the need to reasonably scrutinize airline passengers of all religions and races who set off metal detectors," said Kamran Memon, Kaukab's attorney. "Muslims absolutely do not understand strip searching and humiliating a Muslim woman solely because of her Islamic clothing and appearance."

Kaukab checked a suitcase on Nov. 7 and walked with a group of colleagues to her United Airlines flight through the security checkpoint in Terminal 1.

After making it through the baggage check and metal detector, she was surprised when a National Guardsman ordered security employees to search her and requested that she remove the hijab.

"I explained that my reticence about removing the hijab was not an effort to be uncooperative," Kaukab said. "It simply reflected my own religious beliefs and practices. ... I offered to take the hijab off but only in a private area or behind a screen and only if it was in front of a woman."

Kaukab said the two female security employees searched her in a private room, running their fingers through her hair, rubbing her scalp and touching her neck, chest, armpits and legs.

"I was startled when the security guard then proceeded to unzip my pants, open them and feel or pat down my body inside my pants and outside my underwear," Kaukab said. "At this point I was so frightened that I could barely speak."

After the search Kaukab said she was released, left without incident and went to the bathroom, where she cried and called her mother.

Kaukab, who holds a political science degree and is applying for graduate school, said the incident at O'Hare was the only time she ever has had a problem getting through airport security checks.